ven the surest reward; and began to long for the day, not
only when he should enter into the one Church and receive his first
communion, but when he might join that wonderful brotherhood, which was
present throughout all the world, and which numbered the wisest, the
bravest, the highest born, the most eloquent of men among its members.
Father Holt bade him keep his views secret, and to hide them as a great
treasure which would escape him if it was revealed; and proud of this
confidence and secret vested in him, the lad became fondly attached to the
master who initiated him into a mystery so wonderful and awful. And when
little Tom Tusher, his neighbour, came from school for his holiday, and
said how he, too, was to be bred up for an English priest, and would get
what he called an exhibition from his school, and then a college
scholarship and fellowship, and then a good living--it tasked young Harry
Esmond's powers of reticence not to say to his young companion, "Church!
priesthood! fat living! My dear Tommy, do you call yours a Church and a
priesthood? What is a fat living compared to converting a hundred thousand
heathens by a single sermon? What is a scholarship at Trinity by the side
of a crown of martyrdom, with angels awaiting you as your head is taken
off? Could your master at school sail over the Thames on his gown? Have
you statues in your church that can bleed, speak, walk, and cry? My good
Tommy, in dear Father Holt's Church these things take place every day. You
know St. Philip of the Willows appeared to Lord Castlewood and caused him
to turn to the one true Church. No saints ever come to you." And Harry
Esmond, because of his promise to Father Holt, hiding away these treasures
of faith from T. Tusher, delivered himself of them nevertheless simply to
Father Holt, who stroked his head, smiled at him with his inscrutable
look, and told him that he did well to meditate on these great things, and
not to talk of them except under direction.

Chapter IV. I Am Placed Under A Popish Priest And Bred To That
Religion.--Viscountess Castlewood

Had time enough been given, and his childish inclinations been properly
nurtured, Harry Esmond had been a Jesuit priest ere he was a dozen years
older, and might have finished his days a martyr in China or a victim on
Tower Hill: for, in the few months they spent together at Castlewood, Mr.
Holt obtained an entire mastery over the boy's intellect and affections;
and had brou